


Love Is So Unreal

by incorrectbatfam



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Super Sons (Comics), Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Songfic, no beta we die like robins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 06:00:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23389927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incorrectbatfam/pseuds/incorrectbatfam
Summary: He fell in love with his best friend.
Relationships: Clark Kent/Lois Lane (mentioned), Jonathan Kent/Damian Wayne
Comments: 7
Kudos: 204





	Love Is So Unreal

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the song Best Friend by Jason Chen

A year ago, if anyone asked Jon what he thought of Damian Wayne, he would’ve said something along the lines of,  _ “Rude, stubborn, and a know-it-all who thinks he’s all that.” _ Heck, if someone asked Jon now he probably would say the same thing because it was true. Damian thought he was better than everyone because he almost got a PhD at seven. Damian refused to listen to anyone other than Batman or Nightwing, and even those two got dismissed sometimes. Damian viewed everything as a training exercise—he even folded notes into paper shurikens before throwing them halfway across the classroom to Jon. (Of course, the master stealth assassin ninja never got caught and it was Jon who got in trouble for passing notes.)

Damian couldn’t act like a regular kid to save his life. Jon was determined to change that from the day they met. Even if it meant begrudgingly dragging him to baseball games on rainy days or eating ice cream in the middle of winter. Jon wanted Damian to feel like the kid he never got to be.

As expected, his efforts did nothing. Damian was as hard-headed and Batman-level serious as always. But there was one thing that came out of those endeavors which somehow still took Jon by surprise: he gained a best friend.

Jon had a secret. One that ate at him so badly that he couldn’t keep it to himself. But it was also one that he couldn’t tell one his classmates because they were sure to blab to everyone else at school, and Jon couldn’t risk getting grounded. Getting grounded meant no patrols with Damian for an entire weekend. For an eleven-year-old that was forever.

That’s right, it was him who put that thumbtack on the principal’s chair.

In his defense, some kids at recess called him a goody-two-shoes. Sure, Jon could’ve risen above and taken it in stride. He was Superboy, after all. But instead, he snuck into the principal’s office to place a pushpin on the swiveling desk chair. Now the guilt was eating him alive.

“Dami, hey! Thanks for waiting up.” Jon tossed his jacket aside and climbed the jungle gym to where the older boy already was. 

“You know, typically when you ask someone to meet you, you should be the one to arrive first,” Damian said.

“I know, I know. Mom made me finish my homework first.”

Damian asked, “So what is it that you wanted to tell me?”

“Oh, yeah, it’s about this thing I did. But first, you gotta pinky promise me you don’t tell anyone else.” Jon held out his little finger.

“Tt, what are you, eleven?”

“Yes, now pinky promise me please, Damian.”

“No. If it was truly important you’d either tell me without these immature rituals or you wouldn’t tell it at all.”

Jon playfully shoved Damian and pouted. “You’re no fun, you know that?”

He ignored the tingling feeling in his stomach.

The first thought appeared over a normal family meal.

_ “I should call Damian, or else he’ll miss dessert too.” _

It was sudden, unprompted. It left Jon physically reeling and his mother asking if he was okay. After assuring her that he was fine and probably just tired, he wolfed down the rest of his food before excusing himself to his room.

Jon flopped on his belly and groaned loudly into his pillow, more annoyed at himself than anything.

“What the H was that, Kent?” he asked himself.

He knew full well that Damian had his own house and butler to cook for him. Why was he suddenly so concerned about his friend missing an apple pie from another city? It was like an itch that wouldn’t go away.

There was a soft knock on the door. Jon didn’t even have time to respond before Clark let himself in with a slice of pie and ice cream.

“Just checking in again, are you sure you’re okay, sport?” he asked, setting the plate on the night table. 

“Yeah, just...tired. Lot on my mind. Homework and tests and all that,” Jon said with a smile.

He laughed and ruffled Jon’s already messy hair. “Like father, like son. I should probably leave you to all that studying then. And don’t stay up too late.”

Jon thought it was a one-time thing. A fluke, maybe due to being exhausted from school and superhero duties. 

He was sorely mistaken, for the very next morning he found himself waiting on the baseball field for Damian’s helicopter, more nervous than usual. Jon wasn’t sure  _ why _ , though. All he knew was that if his foot tapped any faster, he’d set fire to the grass and burn down the entire school.

_ “Damian would love that.” _

“Shut up,” he said out loud, earning a strange glance from a passerby. 

Thankfully, he didn’t have to awkwardly explain himself to a stranger when a gust of wind blew and the sleek black Wayne Enterprises helicopter touched down, scattering leaves in its wake. Jon beamed widely as he ran to greet Damian. 

“Hey Dami! Hey Alfred!” he chirped. 

“I don’t understand why you do this,” Damian said. “You’ve seen me in a helicopter before, and you risk being late to class waiting for me.”

“But still, it’s the coolest thing ever,” Jon insisted. “Plus, you’re my friends. You’d wait for me if you got here before the busses, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course not.”

Jon kept talking as they made their way up the steps. “Aw, come on. We both know you're a big softie under that assassin shell.”

Damian scoffed. “I have no idea where you got that idea.”

Though they both wore the same uniform, Jon thought Damian pulled it off better. Alfred clearly had more professional laundry supplies than the Kents, judging by how the white shirt was as stiff as when it was first bought, and the way it fit perfectly, not stretching or shrinking between washes like the other kids’. And the jacket immaculate, like someone just took a lint roller to it (again, Alfred probably did). 

Jon didn’t notice himself lost in how Damian looked until he almost walked past their classroom, when Damian roughly tugged him by the back of his collar.

“This way, Smallville. Or did you forget how hallways worked?”

“Right, right, just got distracted,” he said sheepishly.

“Work on that,” Damian said.

Throughout class that day, the thoughts didn’t disappear. Jon found himself staring at Damian more than at the board. He wondered what it was like to run his fingers through the other boy’s hair, or what it was like to pull him into a hug and for it to actually be reciprocated. He almost didn’t hear the teacher call on him, and he blurted out the wrongest possible answer to the question ( _ “The Second French Revolution didn’t start in the year 200, Mr. Kent. Looks like someone didn’t do the reading.” _ ). Jon would’ve blushed harder at his classmates laughing at him if he wasn’t so fixated on Damian’s amused little smirk. 

Once the class settled down and went back to the lecture, he actually got back to taking notes until he felt something against his temple. Something small, like a blunt needle poking. He didn’t even need to look in order to know where it came from.

He unfolded the paper ninja star. It read:

_ “That was almost as idiotic than your thumbtack trick, but infinitesimally funnier. –D” _

Jon almost didn’t notice his heart skip a beat.

It happened again later that week. 

Both boys were sweaty from beating up Lex Luthor’s henchmen, and Jon wanted nothing more than to curl up on the couch with a Disney movie. Damian insisted that they finish their routes, but conceded to a quick ice cream break. They ate in silence, sitting atop a Daily Planet billboard with a waffle cone each. Damian had a little bit of strawberry on his upper lip, and Jon’s first thought went to kissing those lips.

Instead, Jon handed him a napkin.

“What is wrong with you?” he asked himself.

Damian looked rather offended, and it was then that Jon realized what happened. 

“I was, um, talking to myself,” he mumbled, looking away so the other boy couldn’t catch the pink creeping up his cheeks.

_ “But seriously, what is wrong with me?” _

After some serious consideration, several Google searches, and a teen magazine quiz, Jon came to the terrifying realization of,  _ “I think I’m in love. Oh God, I’m in love with my best friend.” _

That couldn’t be, could it? Damian was his friend and Jon cared a lot, but he couldn’t possibly think of him that way. Right? But there was that night in Metropolis, on top of the billboard with the ice cream and…

“Oh, who am I kidding?” Jon asked himself, not caring if his father could hear from the other bedroom. 

He ran a hand tiredly over his face and checked the clock beside him. It was rather late; his mother expected him in bed ten minutes ago. Yet Jon was anything but tired. His brain felt like a hive buzzing with a thousand bees, all revolving around the same figure.

But he knew that just because Damian was on his mind twenty-four seven, it didn’t mean things were the same on the other end. Damian had made it abundantly clear from the start that him and Jon, Robin and Superboy, would be nothing but colleagues. Allies. Partners, maybe, but that word suddenly felt a lot weightier than before.

Jon knew that Damian didn’t feel the same way. Not that Damian was incapable of it—many have thought that, but Jon knew him well enough to know that the son of Batman had more love to offer than he knew what to do with (hence all the animals they rescued together). That was different, however. Damian probably wasn’t into guys, and even if he was, he’d want someone who was refined and a good fighter like himself. No way he’d want plain old immature Jonathan Kent from Smallville. Damian didn’t want him as a superhero partner initially, he didn’t want him for the Teen Titans. No way was anything else going to happen. 

Jon pulled himself up to change into his pajamas and get ready for bed. He curled up among the blankets and closed his eyes, perhaps with the hope that a good night’s sleep could solve all his problems. The whole night, visions of batarangs and movie nights danced through his head, and oddly enough put him at ease.

“Mom, what was it like falling in love with Dad?”

Lois paused in the middle of stirring her coffee and peered up.

She asked, “What makes you ask all of a sudden.”

Jon hesitated, scratching the back of his head, but told his mother candidly, “I have feelings for someone from school. I-I won’t say who it is, ‘cause, like, that’d be embarrassing.”

Lois set her mug down and thought for a second. “Well,” she said. “It was like...seeing him became the highlight of my day. I could have the worst string of luck and then your father comes around and it all just disappeared. And I guess I could live a normal life without him, but it’s not something I imagine myself doing.”

It was just then that Clark entered the kitchen, fixing up his tie for work. Jon internally cringed when he remembered his father probably heard the entire conversation from upstairs. The boy could only hope he wasn’t paying attention.

“Hey babe, Jonno.” Clark placed a peck on Lois’s lips and ruffled Jon’s hair on his way to the toaster. “What’cha guys talking about?”

“Jon’s asking the love questions,” Lois said. “Our little boy’s growing up.”

Said boy groaned, “Mooom, you’re embarrassing me.” 

Clark raised an eyebrow. “You got your eyes on a certain someone then? Well, whoever they are, they’ll have to go through me first.”

“He doesn’t even like me back,” Jon admitted. 

He barely registered his father raising an eyebrow at the “he” part, followed by his mother jabbing her husband in the ribs with her elbow. 

“How do you know?” Clark questioned. “Did you ask him?”

“No, but he doesn’t even like me as friends. There’s no way that...you know.”

Lois chuckled sympathetically. “If you really like this boy, I say you should take a chance with him, sweetheart. He might surprise you.” 

Jon smiled as he gathered his backpack. He planted a kiss on his mom’s cheek.

“Thanks guys, wish me luck.”

Jon didn’t go to school that day. He wouldn’t have been able to concentrate anyway because...well...him. Instead, as soon as he was out of sight of his parents and the bus stop, Jon took to the sky, soaring over the amber fields of his tiny farm town. The wind slapped his face and gave him a relaxing feeling that he didn’t know he was missing.

Finally, he settled on a familiar little playground. It was empty, because the other families who frequented it were either at school or work. Jon landed on a little platform attached to a tube slide and hung his backpack from the ladder. The landing was barely big enough for Jon to lie down and gaze up at the clouds. A single hawk flew lazy circles up above, and the smell of cornflowers and wheat hit his nostrils. 

He took a deep breath and sighed contently, letting his thoughts roll like the endless acres of grain around him. Jon thought about his parents’ advice; he’d have to face Damian at some point. He thought of Robin and the Fortress of Attitude and all their adventures. He thought of paper throwing stars, baby animal rescues, all the times Batman grounded them. He thought about movie nights with popcorn and the way they bickered over their three-inch height difference. Jon closed his eyes and he could practically hear that “Tt” sound Damian made.

“Get up, Kent. It’s already bad enough you cut class. I won’t have you shirking your hero duties either.”

Jon felt a tiny kick to his side, jolting him out of his thoughts. He gently rubbed his ribs as he pulled himself up, and only just now realized that the little slide platform was a pretty tight squeeze. The two boys were less than a foot apart, and it seemed like less because Damian was dressed in his kevlar Robin uniform. 

“You’ve got some explaining to do,” Damian said. “So start talking.”

_ “You could tell him, Jon. You could tell him right now. Take a chance, it might be worth it. He might like you back or he might not but you’ll never know if you don’t try. Do it, Jon, do it. Tell him, tell him, tell him.” _

Jon took a deep breath. “Dami–”

“No real names on the field. It’s Robin.”

“Right, Robin. I...I don’t know if there’s a right way to put it.”

The older one squinted from behind the green mask. “Is this another dumb thing you did? If you pranked all the teachers–”

Jon laughed. “No, no, nothing like that. But...I do have another secret to tell you.”

The bat boy nodded earnestly and checked over his shoulder quickly before peeling off his domino. Whatever Jon was going to say dried up in his throat as their faces were mere inches apart. Robin’s— _ Damian’s _ —emerald eyes softened, gleaming like a city and when Jon looked into them, it felt like he wasn’t in Kansas anymore. 

“It’s a really, really special secret,” he said quietly.

“I won’t tell.”

They sealed it with a pinky promise.


End file.
